Hello everyone,
I am currently attending college with a specialization in game programming and development. With the end of my courses coming near, it's about time I reached out to a legitimate game developer forum for knowledge and advice on a variety of topics. The topic I would like to discuss, which is also the one that has grabbed my attention recently, is audio design in games. As we all know, audio is an important aspect of the overall gaming experience. The questions I have are as follows:
- The Playstation 5 is planning on having "3D Audio" built-in without external hardware. Assuming this works similar to something like Dolby Atmos, but more accessible, what with this mean for audio design in the future? Many game dev teams are already tasked with developing for multiple platforms, how will this new technology effect multi-platform development? Will this only be utilized for Playstation 5 exclusives?
- Footstep audio in player versus player experiences: how much is too much? Many games with pvp experiences place an emphasis on the user character footstep audio over other characters footstep audio. In my experience, this makes finding other players to fight (in the context of a confined space with many areas to hide) a exercise of "stop, listen, and go" to locate them. Theoretically, would increasing enemy footstep audio lead to quicker engagements on the battlefield? Though over-tuning this might be harmful for gamers who are overtly-sensitive of hearing.
- Voiced in-game elements for the sake of accessibility: worth the cost? I have two brothers with cerebral palsy who play games often, as it's one of the only things they can engage with. Their hearing is great, though they have an extremely hard time reading in-game text that aren't voiced (i.e. in-game items and quest descriptions). Would having something similar to Microsoft Sam read out these elements be worth implementing? Text-to-speech licenses as low as $99 a month exist, which is lower than what I expected.
Thanks for reading!